


Trace the Lines and Tell Me a Story

by Satine86



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, Mild Angst, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-15
Updated: 2015-07-15
Packaged: 2018-04-09 12:35:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4349057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Satine86/pseuds/Satine86
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em> “V plus C. I think I like that.” She opened her eyes and looked up at him. “Are you going to write me a story?” </em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trace the Lines and Tell Me a Story

He wasn't sure how it started, it was just something he did absentmindedly. But she had been sprawled across his bed, naked save the thin sheet barely covering her ass, arms tucked under head with the most blissful look on her face. 

Her skin glowed in the candlelight, a warm golden brown that had his fingers itching to trace every line, every scar. So he started with her back, fingers gliding over the outline of muscles, the slope and curve of her body. 

She closed her eyes at his touch, moved a little closer to his body, a smile lifting the corner of her mouth. He continued trailing a finger up and down her back, tracing scars and old wounds. Eventually his mind wandered, to nothing, to everything. But mostly to the fact that such a beautiful woman was currently in his bed. 

“It feels like you're writing,” she mumbled, voice low and contented. 

“Am I?” He blinked, stilling as he came back to the present. Then he smiled, an idea coming to the forefront of his mind. “What if I was?” 

He traced a V in the middle of her back, right between her shoulder blades. 

“V... for Varric?” she asked with a laugh. 

“Perhaps.” He added a plus sign next. She laughed again. He finished with a C.

“V plus C. I think I like that.” She opened her eyes and looked up at him. “Are you going to write me a story?” 

“Yes. Don't move.” He rose from the bed and crossed to the small cupboard where he kept writing supplies, and various components for traps and bombs, most borrowed from Sera. Behind him Cassandra rolled onto her back, propping herself up on her elbows to watch him carefully. 

“What are you doing?” 

“I'll show you soon enough, Seeker. Patience.” He picked up a bag of powder, carefully pouring some into an empty inkwell. 

She made a disgruntled noise in the back of her throat, flopping back against the pillows. 

“Not enjoying the view?” he asked with a wicked grin. 

She returned his smile with one just as equally wicked. “I do. But I enjoyed it much better up close.”

Well that was just unfair. Finishing his task, he grabbed a fresh quill and returned to the bed. Standing next to Cassandra's side. 

“Roll over.” He punctured the request with a swirl of the quill, brows inching upward. 

She did as he asked, but with an achingly deliberate slowness that had his breath wooshing out of him. Her muscles working and bunching with the movement, torso twisting in a particularly suggestive way that had him nearly throwing his entire idea out the window. He cleared his throat.

“Now you're just testing me, Cassandra.” 

Her face was completely bland as she looked up at him. “Perhaps if I knew what you were doing, I wouldn't feel the need to.” 

“I'm writing you a story,” he said, crawling onto the bed, straddling her hips. 

“Oooh?” she drawled, “What kind of story?” She wiggled her ass in a delightfully distracting way, and Varric bit back a groan. 

“You won't find out if you keep that up.” 

She smirked at him over her shoulder, and he _really_ wanted to toss the idea out and fuck her until she was screaming his name. But he was a dwarf with a plan and everything else would just have to wait until after. 

He traced the feather tip of the quill down her ribcage. She shrieked, burying her face in the pillows as she laughed, trying to squirm away. 

“That's right, I have a weapon. So be good.” He leaned forward, pressed a kiss to her shoulder blade. Straightening up again, he dipped the quill into the inkwell.

“What is that?” 

“A little pigment and water. It'll wash off,” he replied as he carefully brushed a line onto her back.

“You're writing _on_ me?” 

“Yes,” he said, carefully gliding the quill over her back. “What can I say? Sometimes beautiful art needs a beautiful canvas.”

Cassandra scoffed loudly, “Bullshit.” 

“You can think that if you want, but I'm being quite serious, Seeker.” He continued writing, dipping the quill into the makeshift ink every so often.

“You're writing so quickly, how can I tell what it says?” She looked over her shoulder again, trying to glimpse the words on her back. 

“I'll tell you when I'm done.” He bent forward, blowing gently to dry blotch of inky pigment. She shivered. Varric continued writing until her entire back was covered with words. He sat up when he was finished, back twinging a bit. 

Moving to the other side of the bed, he placed the inkwell and quill on the nightstand, and turned to watch Cassandra trying to see the words.

“What is it? What's the story?” she asked, twisting this way and that. She looked up at him, her face flushed with excitement. 

He ran a finger down her spine, “Mine. Well, some of it, I ran out of room.” He smiled as she turned to face him. “But it's the true story, the no one really knows. Do you want to hear it?” 

She nodded, eyes locked with his. 

Varric settled back against the pillows and Cassandra followed. They were a tangle of limbs and bare skin as she practically draped herself over him, head resting on his chest, her face turned away. Once they were both comfortable, Varric wrapped his arm around her shoulders and the words started.

He told her about his parents, about the plight of being a second son, second best. He told her about the Merchant's Guild, all those endeavors when he was older. He told her about Bianca, and being a second choice. He told her about Bartrand, the sting of betrayal in favor of money. He told her about Hawke, not the Champion of Kirkwall, but his friend, and being left behind. Again.

He was surprised when, at the conclusion of his story, he felt a telltale wetness on his chest. Cassandra sniffled softly, and lifted her head enough to swipe at her face. After a moment she sat up all the way, facing him. 

“Well, shit, Cassandra, you don't need to cry. I know it's not the happiest story, but it's not the saddest either.” He reached up to brush away her tears, thumb tracing over the scar on her right cheek. 

She covered his hand with her own, leaned into his palm. “It's not that... I mean it is, but--” she stopped, thinking. “Thank you for trusting me with the truth.” 

“That's enough to make you cry?” 

“Yes, because I can't imagine what it cost you to share it. You do not speak the truth easily, Varric. Nor do you share your own stories. The truth, like this, is something big.” 

He sat up, cupped her face with both hands. “Nah, I already trust you with my heart, the truth's nothing compared to that.” 

She smiled then, bright and beautiful, and he had to kiss her. It was soft and slow and _very_ thorough, because one simply did not half-ass kissing Seeker Pentaghast when one had Seeker Pentaghast naked in their bed. And certainly not when she made such delightful noises in the back of her throat.

Eventually they fell back against the bed, Cassandra once again draped over him, her head resting on his chest, right above his heart. 

Varric sucked in a breath when Cassandra's fingertip trailed over his stomach, tickling. “What are you doing?” 

He could feel her smile rather than see it. “Writing my own story.” 

“Oh,” he said on an exhale. “You gonna tell it to me?”

“Yes, but words do not come to me as easily as they do to you.”

“I doubt that. Just start at the beginning, then they'll come.” 

She nodded, pressed a kiss to his chest, and started. She told him about the parents she lost, about a brother she idolized and the memory of his brutal death. She told him about a man she had loved, and how he died. She told him about her fears, how she never again wanted to stand idle, helpless as those around her fell to ruin. 

When she finished the candles were long burnt out, her voice tight. They shifted together, stretching out on their sides, facing one another in the soft predawn light. 

“Do you think Bianca was the love of your life?” she asked, voice little more than a whisper. 

“I did, once.” He paused. “Did you think Galyan was the life of your life?” 

“I did, once.” Another pause. “What changed your mind? About Bianca?”

“What changed yours about Galyan?” 

A soft smile spread across her face, “I asked you first, dwarf.” 

“Ah, the Seeker charm, how I've missed it.” He snickered at her, scooted a bit closer. “It's funny, because I can remember thinking 'this is it', and I can remember thinking nothing will ever top this; this is everything. But I don't remember feeling it.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I'm sure I felt _something_ , I had to have, but I think I was more in love with ideas than anything else. Ideas I held onto longer than I had any right to.”

“I think I understand that,” she said, bringing herself even closer to him. “Galyan was the first... the only, for a long time. But it's different with you, Varric. Different with us.” 

“Yeah, it is.”

“It scares me sometimes, what I feel. How much I feel.” She lifted her hand, laid it gently on his cheek. “I have lost everyone I have ever cared about, but it made me stronger. Forged me like a blade in the fire.” 

She stopped, her voice so soft, so thick with emotion he barely caught her words. “But, Varric, if I lost you I think I would break.” 

He grinned, “Lucky for you then, you're stuck with me.” 

“I'm serious.” Her voice cracked. 

Varric reached out and rested his hand on her side, just above the swell of her hip. “So am I.”

“Do you promise?” 

“I think we both know promises like that are shit, especially in our line of work. But I will try. I will try my damnedest.” 

She smiled, a little weak, a little watery, but still a smile. “I will try too.”

He returned her smile and ducked forward to kiss her, his hand sliding over her hip, down her thigh to the back of her knee. He pulled her leg over his hip, and she rolled them until she straddled him. Never breaking the kiss.

Cassandra framed his face with her hands, the kiss hot and heady, but languid because they had time. And when she rocked against him it was a long, slow motion that pulled a throaty moan from both of them. In the early morning light they explored and caressed and kissed, each one a quiet declaration. 

_I love you. I need you. I am forever yours._


End file.
